While many industrialized countries have come to regard parasitic infection as a problem of impoverished developing countries, this is far from the truth. The incidence of parasitic infection, especially of the urogenital tract, continues to present a serious health concern. For example, in the United States in some areas, the incidence of urogenital infection due to Trichomonas vaginalis is reported to be as high as fifty percent with twenty to fifty percent of infected women and ninety percent of infected men being asymptomatic. Zinsser Microbiology, 20th Edition, 1173 (1992). Additionally, in the case of urogenital infection, incidence of infection is notoriously underestimated due to physicians prescribing broad spectrum antibiotics rather than isolating the offending, fastidious pathogen and the failure of physicians to report sexually transmitted vaginal diseases. Traditional treatment regimens for such infections consist of administration of a selective action antibiotic. However, antimicrobial resistance to such drugs raises concern about the ability to effectively treat parasitic infections in the future. Therefore, the need for effective anti-parasitic treatment therapies continues to grow.
It has been discovered by the present invention that the administration of bismuth salts may be effective for the prevention and/or treatment of urogenital disorders caused or mediated by parasitic protozoa. Thus, an object of the present invention is to provide a safe and effective method of preventing and/or treating urogenital disorders caused or mediated by parasitic protozoa. A further object of the invention is to provide such a method comprising the administration of bismuth.
These and other objects of the present invention will become readily apparent from the detailed description which follows.